Crowe heard the soldiers before he saw them. The raucous peals of their laughter cut through the canopy of trees like a knife. The sound sent his blood skittering through his veins. For three days he’d managed to avoid them, veering further and further from the Daminion Highway, the road that would take him further north. He knew how to cover his tracks but the leader of their party was as relentless and cunning as he was cruel. Nevertheless he was drawn to the commotion. He drew behind a thick line of bushes that hid him from view of the clearing. 

Three scouts gathered around a single silhouette. The hulking figure at the center of the half circle thrashed against its restraints. The figure threw its head back into the light giving Crowe a glimpse of its true nature. He gasped, his eyes widening. He’d heard stories of the Okanavi people - lycans, creatures who were neither man nor beast but something in between. Seeing one, however, was altogether a different experience. His mind floundered, trying to make sense of what should be and what should not be. The creature stood bipedal, with two arms and two legs but this was as far as the similarities to a human being went. The massive head, large triangle ears covered in tufts of dark fur. Eyes the color of molten gold promised the scouts a painful death if he broke free. Its large muzzle parted, thick leathery lips peeling back from a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. There was only one thing the Theocracy hated more than a practitioner - a lycan. 

“Lycan scum!” A glass bottle soared through the air. The bottle struck the lycan's chest, shattering on impact, tearing fur and a flap of flesh from the bone. “You should have stayed under the desert sun where you belong!”

This isn't my problem. Crowe  shrunk away from the trees. The trinket around his throat caught the firelight. Shoulders sagging, the practitioner’s head fell back with a sigh. His body decided for him, backtracking until he was crouched behind the bushes again. Crowe pushed his will into his staff. The runes carved into the wood surged into life, pulsating in his hand. His eyes burned with an inner white fire that eclipsed both iris and pupil. He stepped out into the clearing.

“Get away from him!” His voice exploded like a cannon, scattering the three scouts in its wake. They jerked into motion, reaching for their rifles. Crowe lunged forward. He struck the first scout with a glancing blow that knocked the rifle aside a fraction of a second before it exploded. Another blow sent him sprawling onto his back. 

“Practitioner bastard!” a voice shouted at his back. An explosion of gunfire erupted behind Crowe, but the young sorcerer was already on the move, pivoting around to face him. The trunk next to his head burst apart in a cloud of splintered bark.

 The silver blade of a bayonet caught the light, flashing towards his belly. Before the blade could pierce his gut, a wall of flame shot from the end of the practitioner's staff. The sheer force of his will tore furrows in the ground. Smoke billowed from all directions. Crowe stood in the center of the clearing, blood singing in his ears. His breath came out in harsh gasps. He watched the scout dance and spin as he burned, his screams reaching for the uncaring night sky. Crowe unsheathed a dagger from the pocket of his robes. With a single swipe of his arm, he sliced the scout’s throat open. The soldier hit the ground with a thud, his charred flesh smoking.

He turned just in time to see the final scout burst through the trees, fleeing in the direction of the highway. The practitioner hesitated only a moment, knowing he could not risk the scout alerting more of his ilk. He sprinted after him, branches clawing at his robes. Brambles crackled beneath his feet like bone turned to dust. He pounced onto the scout's back. They toppled to the ground in a twisted pile of kicking limbs. The scout opened his mouth to scream. Crowe drew the blade of the dagger across the scout’s throat, silencing him.

Wide eyes stared up at a careless sky. In the wan light the practitioner could see the scout was not much older than himself. He straddled the boy, muffling the gurgling sound with his gloved hands. He clenched his eyes shut, prayers hissing between his teeth. He wasn't sure how much time passed before he realized the air had gone completely silent but for the crackle of flames. He rose to his feet, queasy at the sight of his handiwork. He gripped the dagger in a shaking hand. 

He returned to the clearing where the lycan still remained, bound to the tree. Up close the severity of the Okanavian's wounds were much more apparent. The ring of torture had begun long before Crowe's arrival and would have continued long after had he not intervened. The lycan had been beaten severely. Patches of missing fur and flesh down to the bone indicated he’d been lassoed to the back of a horse and dragged at some point. A few steps closer the practitioner could smell the stomach-twisting stench of defecation and sweat that rolled off the Okanavian like a black wave. He’d heard the rumors of a lycan's abilities to heal much more quickly than mortals, but Crowe didn't see  how anyone could heal from this.

Guilt churned in his gut. I was going to leave him. No one deserves to suffer like this.

Crowe had to mount the tree to reach the lycan. The Okanavian lifted his head, tracking the practitioner's progress with eyes that had cooled to amber. Apart from a tunic made of rough leather, the lycan possessed a heavy gray coat that almost looked black in the dead of night; it covered him from the tips of his toes down to the bare pads of his massive paws. The narrow pointed muzzle gave the creature a feral look that made the practitioner weary. Still, he recognized exhaustion when he saw it. Suffering. It was one of the few things that transcended the bridge between language and culture. 

It was not easy work to cut through the bindings. Now that the rush of adrenaline had waned, winter’s chill descended upon Crowe. Seeping into his bones. Numbing his fingers. Teeth gritted against the ache in his arm. At last the bindings fell away. 

Crowe had no way to stop the Okanavian's fall to the earth. The lycan landed with a great crash that made the tree sway. The practitioner climbed down carefully. When he surmised the lycan would not attack him, the practitioner knelt at his side. He grabbed his satchel and pulled out a tightly rolled aether joint. He unrolled it, smearing the herb on his finger. When the lycan did not move, Crowe peeled the lips of the Okanavian’s mouth open before his courage could desert him. He expected to feel the lycan's teeth bite into his flesh. Instead the tip of a warm tongue lapped the blood from his finger; a fat, wide tongue that felt grainy against his skin. The aether wouldn't do anything for the wounds but it would help the pain. The lycan's pulse felt steady beneath his fingers. He’ll make it through the night. He’ll live. I’ve done all that I can do.

Crowe rose from his work. It was time to move on.

The clearing was well enough away from the road he could camp close by for the night, but by nightfall tomorrow he would be gone. The scout's empty-eyed gaze remained fixed in his mind. He circled back to a small cave where he'd set his own camp, stopping at the two rabbit snares he’d built along the way; both had bounty to offer. 

That night his sleep was fraught with replayings of the scout’s death. Over and over he drew the blade across flesh. The eyes widening until all he could see were the whites. Breath hitching, a thread cut brutally short. 

He woke up, gasping, skin washed in sweat. The inside of the cave was warm. Embers still glowed in the fire pit he’d made from gathered stones and branches and twigs. Eventually his heart slowed into a steady rhythm. He was about to drift back into sleep when the snap of a tree branch outside the cave jerked him into a sitting position. 

Something moved through the trees. Crowe’s heart seized, pumping blood into his throat, filling his mouth with the metallic taste of fear. A figure emerged through the last layer of tree growth, loping into the clearing. The practitioner sucked in a breath. The practitioner recognized the pointed muzzle, tufts of thick fur, and broad arms of the Okanavian. It’s the lycan. He’s alive. He followed me here. What does he want from me? 

Crowe’s fingers clenched around the staff hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Hastily he ducked back towards the firepit. He extinguished the last of the flames, plunging the cave into darkness. He crouched, waiting. Afraid. A cruel reminder that at least with the Theocracy he knew their intentions. Not with this barbarian who had teeth meant for tearing through flesh and bone. Who had claws. Who could tear him limb from limb without a second’s hesitation. A beast from another place. Another world.

The Okanavian froze, a living statue cut from darkness and moonlight. He moved with an unnatural grace, muscles shifting and bulging beneath thick tufts of fur. His body was a ravaged mess of bloodied wounds, scrapes, and bruises. A long gray tail poked out from a hole in his torn kilt, wagging back and forth under the moon in anticipation. His muzzle was covered in a crust of dried blood, bestial features made sharper by the darkness that hollowed his jaw. Crowe sensed a confrontation was inevitable. 

The Okanavian’s head snapped around in the direction of the cave, body shifting with unexpected fluidity. His ears swivelled around with a twitch.  His muzzle twitched, black nose vibrating, making a deep snuffling sound. Hot breath steaming against the cold. The hackles on the back of his neck rising. He loped towards the cave, their collision imminent. 

The lycan’s breadth filled the entrance. For the flicker of a moment, Crowe wondered if the barbarian would be able to fit inside. His hopes were dashed when the Okanavian hunkered, tucking his shoulders into the opening, his breath issuing snorts of air that galvanized Crowe, chilling him to the bone. It was a cruel twist of fate the creature could fit himself in such a tight space, defying the laws of the material universe. The Theocracy feared anything that defied the laws of the material universe.

Those gold eyes zeroed in on the practitioner. He was trapped with no choice but to confront the barbarian…whether he wanted to or not. Crowe shoved the tip of his staff into the center of the firepit. Sparks of fire shot from the end of the staff, roaring into ferocious light. A great whooshing sound filled the cave, threatening to engulf them both. Crowe backed deeper into the cave until his back slammed into a wall. There was nowhere else to go. The lycan ducked low but did not back away. 

The sorcerer brandished his staff at the Okanaivan. “Get back!” he shouted, teeth gritted. “You’re not welcome here!”

The lycan surprised the practitioner by falling to his knees with a whining sound that made him think of a wounded dog.  Slowly the barbarian unfurled his paws to show the thick leathery pads of his palms. A universal sign no matter what corner of the world you came from. All Crowe could see were the claws. Though they were not pointed at the practitioner in threat they gleamed in the dark, sharper than any blade he’d encountered. And let’s not forget the teeth; they were bigger than the claws. Up close he smelled musky and wet, reminding Crowe of Bennett’s hound Cedric.  “Twin o’rre.” The voice that emitted from his muzzle was both a whine and a growl shook by tremors of emotion. Tears of desperation caught in his fur. “Ah'll Oige Hye, hafh ya. Ah nafl epgoka ya mguh'e l' fend llll ya ph'nglui fahf or'azath shugnah.”

Crowe shook his head in frustration. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

The lycan continued to beg in his alien tongue, voice cracking under the pressure. He reached for Crowe’s robes. The practitioner froze. What’s happening?

The Okanavian bunched the hem of his robes in his paws, body burning with a feverish warmth. He pressed the triangles of his ears back against his head. His eyes grew impossibly large, swallowing the practitioner into their depths. Powerful arms looped around Crowe’s legs before he could back away. “Gaia mgep led ya l' ymg'.  Ymg' ah ya ph'nglui hafh fahf or'azath shugnah.  Ahlloigehye mggoka ya llll ymg', twin o’rre…”

His words were a jumble of whines and growls the practitioner had no hope of understanding. All he knew was the way his skin tingled beneath the lycan’s heated touch; the feel of those grainy pads against his skin was unfamiliar but not unpleasant. The feeling of another’s hot tears against his hands as this strange giant sobbed into them. The beast kissed them with his lips in the way a human would in one moment and lapped at them in the next with his tongue until they were in his saliva. Only one word stood out against the rest. Twin o’rre. It was as unfamiliar as the rest, but it was the name the Okanavian kept referring to him as. 

Crowe pushed at the lycan in an attempt to extricate himself from the Okanavian’s powerful grip but there was no getting the beast to move. After a moment the Okanavian seemed to realize what he was trying to do and backed a pace or two away, tail drooping between his great haunches. Paws out once more. Eyes bugging out of his head, body blocking any chance of escape. All at once the Okanavian’s gestures became clear to the practitioner even if his words did not. Take me with you. Don’t leave me here.

“No, no, no,” he heard himself say. “You can't come with me. You don't want to go where I’m going.”

The tone of his voice must have cut through the cultural divide between them for the Okanavian's shoulders slumped in defeat. His head lowered with a great rumble of defeat. Crowe took the opportunity to pass him, heading for the line of trees. It took every ounce of will not to burst into a sprint for fear it would trigger the Okanavian's predatory instincts to hunt him. His hands were still warm from the lycan's tears who’s deep rumbling voice followed him to the treeline, lowered in the Okanavian equivalent of prayer. The practitioner looked up and felt his breath draw short. The great city of Metropolis rested on the horizon’s skyline, suspended in the air like a coin. No Seraphim descended from its glittering spires to make demands of him but its appearance in the clouds was clear enough. Never mind the why of it. The why wasn't important. Only that he accepted this new development in a conspiracy that extended far beyond his limited vision. A set path had been laid out before him. It was his duty to walk it. To stray away from the path was to spit in the face of the weaver of the material universe.

Monad, you ask too much of me.

At some point the lycan had risen from his prayers and now knelt at Crowe's feet once more. His hands engulfed the practitioner's twofold. How easily he could snap them off. Snap the practitioner in half like a twig. But he held Crowe's hands in the cup of his own and peppered them with quick kisses, pleading. The practitioner marveled at his size. Even while kneeling on his knees his eyes came to the practitioner’s chest putting him at over eight feet in height.

 An eerie  sense of calm descended over Crowe. Instinctively he patted the lycan’s forehead in the way a human would a dog, called into action by a force that was beyond him. The Okanavian’s ears perked up. The touching of the lycan’s forehead was a call in of itself. A call to rise. A call to arms. A call that bound. Bound to what and for how long it didn't matter, but already he could feel the first strand of a web closing around them. Perhaps connecting them. “It’s okay,” he told the lycan in a soothing voice. It didn't take much effort on his part. He was exhausted. Exhausted from the strain of ducking and dodging the scouts day after day, living off of what he could forage from the woods. And something had moved through him like a great wind felt by the soul not by the body.

He patted the Okanavian's head a second time. On your feet. 

The lycan rose at his touch, limbs shifting like a mountain eroding out of the ground. His tail swayed in the breeze. Crowe wavered on his feet, struck by the dreamlike absurdity of it all. His head was perfectly level with the lycan’s chest. He noted the trail of further traveling from the valley between his chest down to the barrel curve of his chest was thicker than the rest. Pointed black nodules marked the Okanavian’s pecs. How did such a creature…the perfect blending of canine and man…come to be? 

The sorcerer tried not to think of the implications.  He'd saved the lycan in a moment of weakness. Was the lycan going to follow him around like a stray without a master now? You’ll only slow me down by drawing more attention to us. But for whatever reason Monad had devised a higher purpose in their paths intermingling; what that purpose was had yet to reveal itself.

They faced one another completely, two men from opposing cultures, with no way of understanding each other. Their breath steaming in the air between them. The Okanavian towered over him by two heads, a macabre sight of scratches and gouges. And yet those eyes beheld him with a reverence so intent it shook Crowe to the core. The watchfulness a predator instills upon its prey. 

Crowe backed towards the cave, scanning the trees. If anything was out there he was sure the lycan would have heard it. The language barrier between them was going to present issues. We need to get out of the open. 

The lycan followed him back into the cave. Crowe watched him settle onto the ground across from his pallet. He curled up, looping his tail around himself and bringing his knees in towards his chest. The gesture was very human and canine-like in equal measures. Perhaps we aren't so different after all. Their eyes met across the cave.

The Okanavian grumbled something in a tired voice, his eyes drifting close to sleep. “Thank you.” It could have been anything. It could have been an Okanavian curse for all he knew. He decided on “Thank you.”

“Don't make me regret this,” he muttered.